Activities

Supporting the English Defence League

In October 2009, the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate described Lake as a 45 -year-old businessman from Highgate, North London, who claims to have made his money through computers, and runs a series of intranet services for far-right groups around the world:

In addition to funding materials and publicity, Lake has established a website that he hopes will become a clearing house for the EDL and like-minded organisations. He says that people in the movement must choose their roles. Some can debate on forums, some can be experts on the Koran. He is, however, quick to distance himself from fascist organisations and one of his only demands of the EDL in return for his funding is that it distances itself from groups such as the British National Party.[3]

The Guardian reported in September 2009 that Lake was advising the EDL:

"We are catching a baby at the start of gestation," said Lake, who is considering funding the EDL. "We have a problem with numbers. We have an army of bloggers [in the far-right] but that's not going to get things done.

"Football fans are a potential source of support. They are a hoi polloi that gets off their backsides and travels to a city and they are available before and after matches."[4]

According to the Telegraph, Lake "admits to having met Robinson and some 10 other EDL supporters, but denies any connection to the Far Right."[5]

In April 2010, Lake admitted to a Norwegian TV channel that he had helped to fund the EDL.[6][7]

It's difficult to form alliances in general and its difficult to form alliances between the groups. The groups tend to fragment a lot. There's loads of counterjihad groups out there. They don't work very well together, and some groups appear to be on the wrong side or neutral. It's astounding to find some Jews that actually support Islamic groups. We're not so suprised to find left-wingers in there, but it strictly speaking doesn't make sense.[12]

Lake claimed that intimidation contributed to paranoia among counterjihad activists:

You've got to have pseudonyms, you've got to have, you know, five email addresses, one for your friends, one for your counterjihad, one for your really extreme counterjihad comments, and all the rest of it.[13]

He went on to describe the role of the internet in counterjihad strategy:

The solution for the problem of numbers is to build alliances. I've made a website, it's called 4freedoms.com [actual url not clear from video], which is a community or it's a hub where lots of people can go and make their own groups. There was a preceding website to that called mnemosyne [name indistinct in video] , but the security was so tight it was very difficult to expand it. So at this website you can go and make your own room, so that room could be a Swedish Democrats room, or it could be a room for the Free Press Society so from that room, it can be a platform to reach out and make messages to the web. You could have two rooms. Another room could be the private room, and the private room would be one where you have discussions which we don't want to be public.

It is quite crazy I always think. I'm sure lots of you have looked at Jihad Watch. You look at some of these blogs out there on the web, and some of the discussions really shouldn't be had in public, certainly discussions about strategy.[14]

Another strategy we're trying to do in the UK, is reach out to more physical groups like football fans, get them involved. Well actually they're contacting us, because they're concerned, and these are people who are happy to go out on the street. I mean your average intellectual is happy typing on his PC, but we've reached the end of that road. You're not going to get a fat lot more mileage out of that.

You can blog and write letters to your MP as much as you like. Your MP doesn't care, he doesn't care what you say. The only thing that is going to make people start caring again, that is our nobility, our elite leaders, is if we have more numbers, and if we sometimes get out on the street. Ten they'll care but they don't care about our words. They don't care whether we're right or wrong and they don't read the blogs.

So if you can engage with the physical groups, people who are quite happy to go on the street, the thing about the football fans is they go see a match, and then after the match, they're already there on the street, so if you can then bring them off for a demo that works really well. You get the numbers. And they're not scared as well. Everybody else is scared of being beaten up and attacked. They're not scared of that.[15]

Lake also advocated Buddhists, Hindhus, Sikhs, gays and women, arguing that "All non-Muslims are under threat from Islam."[16]

Mysterious friend Kinana Nadir

According to Bartholomew's Notes on Religion, the organisation Searchlight has suggested that the EDL forged links in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands and the U.S. and that

The driving force behind these links are two men who have been guiding the EDL from the shadows, Alan Lake and his close friend whom we know only as 'Kinana'.[17]

On 30 March 2011, the Redding Tea Party Radio show based in Northern California featured an interview with Kinana, who was reported to be visiting family in the United States nearby. The programme stated the Kinana worked closely with Alan Lake on the 4Freedoms.com website. Kinana appeared to have an American accent.[18]

Searchlight also wrote about the link between Lake and Kinana:
The two men are believed to have met at Kensington Temple, in Notting Hill Gate, west London, which belongs to the Elim Pentecostal Church, a protestant evangelical church, elements of which have attracted controversy for their hardline views on Christianity, homosexuality and Islam.
It is believed that Lake has moved away from the church but Kinana has maintained his links.[17]

On 14 April 2011, Lake/Ayling commented on the site, "The best we can do is try shock 'the masses' out of their complacency."[26]

Comments on the Utoya massacre

Following the Utoya Massacre in Norway on 24 July 2011, Lake commented:

Apparently, in a long screed Anders Behring Breivik posted on line, he did this attack to protest against the way that Islam is taking over large parts of Europe. By attacking the leftist politicians that are enabling this, the chickens have actually come home to roost - altho I'm sure it won't be depicted that way.[27]

Anne Marie Waters

In a series of videos taken in October 2014 at Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park, Ayling could be seen watching Anne Marie Waters of UKIP and Sharia Watch UK - and others - delivering diatribes against Islam, among a group of people who appeared largely supportive. During a Spinwatch investigation, Waters did not respond to repeated requests to clarify her relationship with Ayling.[28] However, after the publication of a critical article, she wrote: 'I do not know Alan Ayling; he has certainly never given me any money.'[29]